Formafantasma: “Design is political no matter what you do.”

“We feel that the department needs an energy at this stage of its development that we cannot deliver right now,” say the duo. “We’ve helped construct a narrative in the department and we feel like it’s time to let it go and have others contribute to it.”

As a practice, Formafantasma interrogates the role of design in contemporary society, exploring the historical, political and social forces that have shaped our environments and in the context of the ecological crisis.Together, they have developed an approach to design that is characterised by experimental material investigations and a rigorous attention to context, process and detail, which was at the heart of the formation of the Geo–Design MA in 2020 and will remain their legacy at the Academy.

Writer and DAE alumnus Emma Lucek spoke to the duo about their trajectory through the school, investigative design and the legacy they hope to leave behind.

→ Emma Lucek: Paola Antonelli has called your brand of design ‘investigative design’, tell me a bit about how this ‘brand’ has evolved throughout your relationship to the Design Academy; first as students, then tutors, then as heads of the GEO-Design, so basically from around 2007 until now.

Formafantasma: Yes, we have been engaging with the Design Academy Eindhoven for a very long time. It’s difficult for us to understand how it evolved,even though we wouldn’t call it a brand. For sure, being students at the Academy helped us understand the possibilities and the problems. On the other hand, we were students here a long time ago, so many things have changed in the meanwhile: the students are different, they have different needs, different interests; interests that are closer to our own.

When we started heading Geo-Design, our approach was different from the way we were taught. At the core of the department there is an investigative attitude that is centred around understanding the politics that shape the design industry and the design practice. So, it still recognises the relevance and the knowledge that comes from industrial production, while at the same time it problematises it as part of the problem related to the ecological crisis. Generally, there’s less focus on the self, or human-centred design, because we cohabit the planet with many other creatures and species, and we’ve tried to include narratives that we weren’t necessarily exposed to when we were students.

→ EL: Why have you decided to leave the Design Academy?

FF: It feels like the right time for us. We definitely have some regrets about leaving a department that we just started developing, but on the other hand, we have been at DAE for a very long time. We have relocated to Milan and, honestly, there have been some personal issues related to the age and well-being of my parents. On top of that, with the growth of our studio, we feel that the department that we care about a lot needs an energy at this early stage of its development that we cannot deliver right now—we can’t dedicate the time that we would want to. We’ve helped construct a narrative in the department and we feel like it’s time to let it go and have others contribute to it. We can’t say much about who will be taking it over, but we know that they will be as—if not more—capable than us in carrying on this shared mindset and vision for the department.

→ EL: Your practice has clearly shaped the Academy and its’ students and beyond—what legacy do you feel you’re leaving behind?

FF: Whatever we have done with our office and at Design Academy Is part of a unified body of work. We always intended to have whatever we were doing at DAE as an extension of our practice, which is extremely engaged with reality. The challenges we are facing in the world and also as designers and as citizens are demanding of a multiplicity of voices. We have advocated for imagination but at the service of reinvention of reality. That, and a sort of political engagement; design is political no matter what you do. It’s clear from the students of the department that there’s an awareness that design is a political act.

We hope that the legacy that Geo-Design will carry forward is that formal design is inquisitive, that it is critical, that it is political and that it is imaginative. I say ‘imaginative’ because the former qualities could be seen as heavy or loaded, but there is a joy in engaging in everyday struggles. If there’s a book that’s really close to our practice, it’s Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble (2016). We live in a complex world with many faults and we’re constantly finding ways in which we can learn to love the monsters that we have contributed to and created—even to redesign them, if necessary.

→ EL: Could you give me a hint as to what the studio will be busy with next? What’s next on the cosmic trajectory of Formafantasma?

FF: First, I should say that we will still be involved in the department for at least the next year. We want to see our students graduate this year, we’ve grown very close. But as for the studio’s work—we’re going to start working on a publication about our work and beyond, it could be linked to a retrospective (even though we hate the word) exhibition in some time. We’ll continue doing research, exhibition design and we’re working on a collaboration with an institution for their ecological development. Our hands will be full but we also feel that we’ll come back to education, for sure…